Run
Loveless is designed around the idea that you will spend just a few hours at a time trying to complete it, mostly through short-lived "runs" that end in failure as you learn its nuances and strategies; so, a run is a single attempt at beating Loveless. Because of this, it does not support saves in the traditional sense: though you can pause your run and save it for later, you can't reload old saves to progress from a previous point (at least not without save-scumming, but nobody can really stop you.) That said, Loveless is forgiving in certain aspects to accommodate the fact that it takes longer to beat than other games like it, so not all is lost if you happen to fail. New Run These menus get the player into a fresh, new game, where they can start building up demons and forming their empire. Character Selection Loveless offers numerous different playable characters to start a run with, each of which have their own quirks; some are designed to make the game easier, others are designed to offer a bigger challenge, but all are designed to make the game different. They are arranged in a grid view on the character selection screen, where you can view more details about what kind of demon they are, and see medals relating to your success with them, among other stats. Deity Selection Once a character has been selected, you can decide which of the deities you will follow; these bestow various different effects on your run. A screen displaying them all is revealed here, and gives a brief description of what they do and who they are. This deity follows you throughout the run, and where you go, it follows, spreading itself like a virus, and colors your kingdom with a particular theme. It is effectively your cultural identity. Once these have been selected, you're thrust into an empty world, and begin working your way up from nothing. Progression Vagrancy A block lands into the vastness of space; upon this block is your headquarters and some empty spaces. Nearby, a few more blocks crash land, upon which is wilderness. As you conquer this wilderness, you gain souls and supporters, and more blocks drop, reaching closer to other kingdoms. You build settlements and farms on these cleared spaces to contribute to your revenue stream. The king goes easy on you about the taxes thing, for now. Company After the player is able to afford an excess of demons, they can begin delegating their more loyal demons to go and conquer wilderness by themselves, further amassing more demons, souls, and land. The game's world is considerably larger now, all thanks to you. All the while, they pay a certain amount of everything they earn as a tax to the king, and that rate shifts over time (usually towards a higher rate); the king may do other things, such as conscript the player's demons, take the player's land (i.e. revenue), or attempt to secretly assassinate the player if the king thinks they're getting too powerful. This pain of loss leads into the idea that the player should be in charge, instead of the king, who seems to treat them so poorly. Revolution The player has not only become very strong, but their most loyal demons have demons of their own to command, and their demon's demons have demons. Better: these demons are more loyal to you, than they are to the king, who has made them hate him with his tyranny. The king, conveniently, enters a point of weakness after a battle with a neighboring kingdom, and a mysterious organization from beyond the mortal plane is gifting you a large sum of souls to "clean house". At this point, either you launch your assault on the king, or the king will recover and treat you as a hostile foreign entity to be removed, sending all his troops to take care of you once and for all; so, whether you want it or not, you're destined to butt heads with the king for dominance. Taste of Power Assuming you were successful in overthrowing the king, you are now the proud owner of a kingdom. To further your exploits, you now set a tax rate for your subjects, granting you lots of souls to work with and lots of demons to delegate; if your subjects hate you, they might revolt against you (as you had against the last king), so try to be fair with this rate. Neighboring kingdoms may also launch attacks against you, so you must keep some demons behind to ensure they can defend themselves, while continuing to build up your highest ranking demons so that you can take the next kingdom, and then the next kingdom, assigning some of your demons to act as puppet kings with their own generals and legions. As the pressures of other kingdoms seeking what you have rises, so does your expenses, so will your subjects become increasingly sick of you taking from them. Critical Mass By this point, you've been able to form an empire by acquiring 2-3 kingdoms, and the other kingdoms are either starting to get worried about you, or they've already been conquered by some other power-hungry sociopath such as yourself, and so have federated out of mutual interests. In this way, 8 kingdoms become 3 superkingdoms, soon to become 2, then to One Hell Government; the only difference is that the opponents are a much higher level and higher quality, and have a lot more legions at their disposal. One Hell Government Finally, after much piñata-ing of those who opposed you, all the demons of Hell bow down to you. All the gods of Hell come down to congratulate you for you monumental victory, and they invite you to join them in destroying their enemy and yours: Heaven. This is your last chance to do whatever you need to in Hell, as once you enter the portal leading to the next plane, you will enter the final stretch. End Run Whatever happens here, you're transported to a new location, and can't go back to Hell again until you're done tearing the reigns of power out of whoever has them. These are largely fixed challenges that will test your skills and your team makeup for their greatness. If successful, you will have beaten Loveless, and an indication of greatness will be added to your playable character's selection screen. Otherworld: Postrun The player has the choice of doing a second run, keeping their player character and demons, but losing their world progress; they work through an even more difficult version of Loveless, which has its own medals. Pausing & Continuing Runs At any point in time on the world map, the player may pause their run, and safely exit the run to the main menu. A "Continue" option will now appear on the main menu, and will stay there until the player is ready to return. Hedging Against Failure Inevitably, even as an experienced player, you're going to hit a situation where you can't seem to succeed and you're doomed for death. There are precautions you can take to ensure that your run isn't over: First Bank of Hell A savings account is your number one insurance against death--but of course, you actually need the souls to put in there. When you die and enter Limbo, you can transfer souls to their courts and buy your way back to life. Thus, every so many saved souls count as a kind of extra life. Furthermore, items can be stored here as well, which can also be sold for souls. The reason why this matters is that all of your souls are dropped when you die, so keeping them on you won't work out. On the other hand, you do gain interest on souls stored with the bank--that is, until those go negative...because reasons. Favor Loyalty over Greed The more your demons like you, the less likely they are to revolt. The absolute last thing you need to happen to you while you're about to take out the last superkingdom is to lose half of your forces over a civil war. Your demons will remind you if they are unhappy; this can be ignored, but it may come at a great cost. Hide The simplest way to avoid getting run over is to keep your player avatar away from the danger. Do note that this will make you weak over time if your other demons are doing all the work, and you know what happens when a demon thinks you're weak... In any case, if you can afford it, send your other demons out to die for you, and keep yourself alive.